


Ruining Romance for Everyone

by liveonlyza



Category: Fall Out Boy
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2010-07-09
Updated: 2010-07-09
Packaged: 2017-10-10 11:41:09
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,699
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/99344
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/liveonlyza/pseuds/liveonlyza
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>The year two thousand. Chris makes wrong assumptions, rescues Patrick from a party, lurks a band practice, and meets the mom.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Ruining Romance for Everyone

the year 2000. Patrick is 16. Chris is 26.

"Oh, you've gotta be kidding me Wentz, this is the 'musical genius' you discovered? Where were you looking, pre-school?" Chris chuckled at his own semi-joke.

 

"Chris, man. This is Patrick Stumph. This kid's going to make us all famous."

 

Pale-ass skin, glasses, an almost threadbare hat, and a funky-ass green sweater was all Chris saw in the kid, all that and red-blonde hair. Nowhere on this kid did Chris see 'famous'. But Chris didn't miss the look of such attraction (almost fucking lust) on Pete's face. He'd seen it before.

 

He couldn't help but feel kinda sorry for this kid, this Patrick Stumph, who looked all of fourteen years old, because he knew that the games Pete Wentz played would completely destroy his innocence.

|

 

The next time that Christopher saw Pete's little prodigy/crush was at a party. The party was in another same-y nameless suburb at an address-less house that looked like most of the rest, thrown by a person Chris wasn't even sure that he knew. Usually, he could stand drinking parties just fine if he wasn't the only person sober. Here, he was almost sure that he was.

 

Someone told him that Pete had shown up. Someone told him Wentz had already left. He knew he was not being fed reliable information.

 

He would have left right then, but his ride had volunteered to go buy more beer, so he was stuck for at least another hour. There was no way he trusted any of these other people, all piss drunk, to give him a lift. Not how he wanted to die, thank you very much.

 

'Fuck it', Chris thought, 'I have to be here, but not here.' So he went out what he believed was the back-door to get some incredibly cliché 'fresh air'.

 

He probably should have been looking down, because the next thing he knew, he had fallen on top of a… person? 'Yes, definitely human. Definitely fleshy.'

 

"Hey man, sorry, I should've been--." Chris recognized this motherfucker. "No way! You're Patrick, right? Pete's kid?" The pale kid nodded at the first question, and then mumbled close to an 'I guess' at the second. It took Chris until then to realize that he'd said 'Pete's kid' out loud when it was an 'in-Chris's-head-only nickname'.

 

"So, what are you doing here, Patrick? Doesn't really seem like your scene." Chris figured that the kid couldn't be that bad, but mostly he figured that there was no way he was going back inside with the turds he usually called friends.

 

"Pete brought me."

 

"So he really is here, then?"

 

"Not anymore. H-He took off with some ch-chick."

 

"Was he your ride?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"You do know that Pete's not some kind of god, right? That he's just a shitty kid like the rest of us?"

 

"Yeah."

 

"That was extra-shitty though, him ditching you. I'm sure that the car I'm riding back in has an empty seat?"

 

Patrick smiled appreciatively. "Thanks, Chris."

 

Chris liked that the kid remembered his name. "Yeah, so our ride should be here any time now." Chris couldn't resist. "So, when's your curfew?"

 

"Twelve."

 

"How old are you, anyway?"

 

"I'm sixteen, damnit! And if you're going to give me shit about it, I'll go find another ride." The boy went to stand up, but with some effort, Chris pulled him back down by his arm.

 

"Not with any of those drunk fucks, you aren't. If Pete's shouting from the rooftops how brilliant you are, it wouldn't be fair to the Universe to have you die tragically mere weeks after being discovered."

 

"Thanks." Chris could tell that Patrick was hit with another wave of sadness when he had mentioned Pete's name. They sat in silence for never-ending minutes until the older man could no longer take it.

 

"So, you drum right?"

 

"Not very well. You play bass."

 

"That didn't sound like a question."

 

"I've seen a few shows." There was more silence, until Chris caught a flaw in their conversation.

 

"You must be really modest."

 

"What?" Patrick was honestly confused.

 

"Your drumming has to be really good, if Pete's so into it."

 

"He's not into my drumming," was the mumbled response.

 

"Damnit! I didn't think that motherfucker would really be that stupid!"

 

The younger boy had flinched away from the outburst that wasn't making any sense to him. "Chris, what the hell are you talking about?"

 

"You're underage! I didn't think he'd be stupid enough to actually sleep with you!"

 

"Sleep with me? You don't even know me and you're assuming that I'm gay and easy? You ass." Patrick started to storm off, even though, he realized, he had nowhere to storm off to. "And if you must know, Pete isn't into me or my drumming, he's into my singing!"

 

Chris wanted to remain in-place, stunned, but some sense in him won out and he rose quickly to chase the boy who was almost back to the house's door. This time to stop him he needed to grab both of Patrick's arms, and then, to stop his struggling, spin the boy around to face him.

 

"Patrick, look, I'm sorry." Then tone he spoke in surprised him almost as much as the words he was speaking. The younger boy refused to meet his eye, and though his struggling had calmed, Chris could still see the anger etched into his soft features. "I shouldn't have assumed shit, really. And I know at the least I should give you space, because you really deserve to be pissed," Patrick let out an agreeing huff, "but no way am I letting you go in there to beg rides from drunks, so there."

 

"You know nothing about me." Chris resisted responding with an 'I'd really like to.' Patrick's face, which had softened during Chris's speech, now read with more confusion than anger, though the latter remained present.

 

There was silence for a long time. Chris eventually released Patrick's forearms from his grip and then after a longer time they once again found themselves seated side-by-side on the set of concrete steps in the yard.

 

"You were right. Well, half-right." The soft voice startled the older male, almost to the point of losing his balance. The words the voice spoke, however, just made Christopher confused. But he was still not half as affected as the next words would make him. "I'm not easy, but I am gay."

 

"What?!"

 

"Earlier, when we were talking about Pete. When you assumed he was taking advantage of me?" Chris nodded, remembering, but still overwhelmed.

 

He hadn't allowed himself to admit it before, not even just to himself, and mostly because he thought that the kid had 'Property of Pete Wentz' stamped on his head, but the kid was gorgeous. Patrick was gorgeous. Still though, he was what? Ten years younger than him? Hell, kid was probably a virgin, with both genders. Chris had no chance, but Patrick was gorgeous.

 

"Can I hear you sing?" It wasn't until he'd spoken that he realized his bout of thought had caused another long silence.

 

"Right now? You could always just come to one of our practices sometime."

 

"Do you not want to sing for some reason?"

 

Patrick hesitated. "I don't like my voice much."

 

Chris restrained from speaking out with an 'if it's anything as amazing as your thighs…', but he was determined to hear Patrick's voice. "If you can't sing in front of me right now, just me, how can you sing in front of a crowd?"

 

"That's different."

 

"How is it different?"

 

"You're Chris from Arma-fucking-Angelus. You're kind of a legend." There was another sentence attached as well, but Chris couldn't make it out.

 

"And I'm… what?"

 

"And you're kind of hot." Chris was shocked into a brief lapse of word and lapse of all thought that wasn't 'Yes! Yes! Yes!' "And obviously I kind of really just freaked you out, so I'm going to go." Chris didn't even think before or as he pulled the standing boy back down, it had become second nature by now.

 

"Patrick! Would you please stop trying to run away from me every five minutes? You didn't freak me out. Well, yeah, kinda, but not that much."

 

"But everyone told me you're straight."

 

"Not everyone knows that I'm not."

 

"And you're not freaked out that I'm… young?"

 

"Honestly? Yeah, I am." Patrick's face dropped. "But if I've only known you for two hours and I already like you this much, then I think you're worth a shot." Both boys smiled and leaned in. They never got very close before they heard a carhorn.

|

 

They were lucky that their driver, who Patrick only heard Chris insult as 'fruity' but never call by name, didn't throw them out.

 

As much as Chris would like to believe that he and Patrick were not sucking face desperately all the way from Hoffman Estates to Glenview, he couldn't. There was no mistaking that for deep conversation. As it was, Chris didn't even LIKE making out, but this kid (God, kid!) and his mouth just made him get lost.

 

Chris really wanted to hear him sing, but he was in no hurry now. There was no way he could stay away from Pete's Band's (the temporary name, he was told) practices.

 

He kissed Patrick's cheek discreetly as he exited the car, careful incase his parents were watching from the windows. Christopher had copied Patrick's phone number during one of their make-out's lulls, and he whispered a 'see you later' when he pulled away from the boy's cheek.

 

Pete's Band had practice tomorrow.

|

 

'I've got a big mouth, and maybe you could, handle shutting it up." Chris must have showed up an hour early or late. The band whose practice space he was walking towards actually sounded… good. Or a lot better than a band who had just been playing together two weeks.

 

He opened the same double doors he had to open every Arma practice, and the first thing he saw was Pete.

 

"Chris! You came, man. Awesome." Chris was pulled into an impromptu hug. There was a threatening growl in his ear. "You and me have to talk later." Chris knew what the talk was about without being told.

 

"Pete, I'm impressed, you guys actually sound good."

 

"Chris, I'm hurt, you sound surprised. I told you Patrick was amazing."

 

"Yeah, I know he is Pete."

 

"You better." The growl had fought its way back to the surface again, but Pete composed himself rather quickly. "Take a seat man; we'll play you what we've got." Chris took one of only three chairs in the large, warehouse-esque room. He made sure that the chair was both out-of-the-way enough not to interfere, and in perfect alignment so that he could watch Patrick behind the kit with a mic rigged over a cymbal. Patrick caught his eye and smiled during the count-off.

 

And then, for the first time, crystal clear, he heard It, and if he wasn't already, Chris fell in love with the kid.

|

 

The practice space was in Wilmette, but on the far end. Patrick's suburban home was on the far end of Glenview. It would be kind of a long walk, yeah, but neither of them had anything to carry, and both wanted to be around each other longer. But on this walk, Patrick delivered to Chris one of the scariest things he'd ever heard.

 

"Last night? When you kissed me in the car in front of my house?" Chris nodded because everything was posed as a question. "My mom saw."

 

"Okay, wait! What?"

 

"My mom saw."

 

"What'd she say?" 'God, please don't send me to jail before I even get a blowjob. I'll go back to church and everything!'

 

"She wants to meet you, that's all. She's already fine with the whole me-being-gay thing."

 

"So what you're saying is, she's going to call the cops on me? Great. Just-fucking-great."

 

"It's just my mom. She's busy a lot these days. She'll probably only look at you for a few minutes and ask you stupid, cliché questions. You don't look that old, so--"

 

"Wait kid, whaddya mean I don't look 'that' old?" Chris leaned down, kissed Patrick's cheek, and started to whisper in his ear. "I remember someone telling me last night that I was 'hot'."

 

"You are. A very hot twenty-six year-old."

 

"Harsh kid. You're lucky you're cute."

|

 

The rest of the walk was long and continued much in the same fashion of teasing and hand-holding, all of which came to a halt when Patrick pointed out his house, that Chris had only seen in darkness before.

 

Patrick had to take a stronger grip on the older man's hand and practically pull him up to the door, which he opened promptly, not wanting to give the slightly-frightened male beside him a chance to back out.

 

"Mom, I'm home!"

 

"You brought that boy like I asked, right?" Her voice was getting closer. With each word, Chris was mentally apologizing to his own mother for winding himself up in jail.

 

"His name is Chris, mom. And yeah, he's here."

 

"Good, good." Now she entered the room and stood in front of them. Chris couldn't help thinking that she looked, well, nice. Like a good mom, but looks can be deceiving. "Hello Christopher, I'm Patricia, but you can call me Pat." She shook his sweaty-ass hand.

 

"Hello, it's really nice to meet you too." 'Please don't ask me how old I am. Please don't ask me how old I am. Please don't ask me how old I am.'

 

"You too, dear. Now, both of you, come sit down. I'd like to know more about the boy who's stolen me baby's heart." Chris kind-of blushed, not that he'd admit it.  
And then it came. "So Christopher, how old are you?"

 

"Mom, I--"

 

"I'm twenty-six."

 

Patricia's face was indefinable shock, confusion, and a bit of fear.

 

"Mom, I--"

 

"Shh, Patrick, I got this." The he took the biggest breath he'd even taken. "Look, I know we haven't known each other long, but I really care about your son, and I'd be an idiot to hurt anyone that perfect. But I respect you as his mom, so if you're not cool with it…"

 

"As long as you don't hurt my son, I think that you and I will get on fine, Christopher." Her face was mostly neutral, her voice a little choked and terse, a hint of an unsure smile at her lips, eyes still reflecting shock and a bit of 'dirty pervert!' "Now, Chris, where are you from?"

 

"I grew up in Pilsen, actually, but now I share an apartment with some friends in the city."

 

She looked relieved that he was suburb-bred, and thusly kind-of harmless. "That's nice, I have friends who live in Pilsen. Now, Patrick tells me you're in a band, Army of Angels, or something, right?"

 

Chris thought it was cute that apparently Patrick gushed to his mom about boys, he wondered how much else he'd told her. "Arma Angelus, yeah. I'm sure you've met Pete. He's in the band too." He was starting to finally relax around the woman who might not even be old enough to be his mother as well.

 

"Oh, yes. Pete played me a CD. It wasn't my thing, exactly, but I've certainly heard worse things passed off as music."

 

"Thanks." 'I think.'

 

"You're welcome, dear. Now I have a more serious question." The golden-brown boy gulped and immediately took up his long-time habit of mullet-tugging. "Where are you planning on going with this relationship?"

 

Chris took a second to straighten out the words in his head. "Right now, I'm planning on officially asking your beautiful son if he'll have me as his boyfriend?" Chris turned and faced Patrick, directing the previous answer to the younger boy as a question.

 

"Yes Chris, yes." The younger boy leaned in to do what Chris himself was much too nervous attempt in front of his new boyfriend's mother. They kissed. It was light and no tongue was involved, but it was Chris's favorite of those they'd shared. It would always be his favorite.

 

"You're incredible, Patrick."

end.


End file.
